University of East Anglia student launches world-wide toilet finder app

A student from the University of East Anglia has launched a free app to help people find their closest public toilets.

The Flush Toilet Finder app works worldwide from an existing database of 100,000 public toilets. But it also allows users to add the locations of toilets which may not already be listed.

It is hoped that the app will be particularly useful for people with conditions such as Crohn’s and IBS, as well as being popular with tourists.

Jake Ruston, who studies in UEA’s School of Computing Sciences, said: ““The app accesses your GPS location to locate all the public conveniences in your area.

“There are already 100,000 toilets listed in its database, however we are also crowd-sourcing information to add additional facilities.

“The app also provides information about whether toilets have disabled access, whether people need to obtain a key for access, and whether the facilities are free or not.

“I got the idea after making an app for the London underground. A lot of people were asking me to include details of toilet facilities for London, but I decided to go bigger and design something for the whole world.

“I asked my family and friends about whether they thought it would be useful and they all thought it was a great idea. I think it will be really useful for almost everyone – but especially for people who are new to an area, visitors and tourists, and particularly for people with conditions such as Crohn’s or IBS.”

Find out more

The University of East Anglia (UEA) is among the top 1% of universities globally (Times Higher Education World Rankings 2014-15) and placed 10th in the UK for the quality of its research output (Research Excellence Framework 2014). Find out more about the university at www.uea.ac.uk